I am scared of many things. I am scared of heights for instance. And I follow by the philosophy, If you are scared of something, don’t run away from it, Face it. And it works every time.
I bet you know the obvious reason for my trip to Indonesia, but the idea of a foreign travel was in my mind since the Feb of 2010 when a friend of mine went to Malaysia for a week’s visit and he said its not that expensive. I was afraid of foreign travel.
- Foreign travels are expensive.
- You have to do an air travel, and airports have security checks. I have heard of airport security holding back people for no reason. (In fact, a friend of my dad was held at some airport in the middle east for over a week).
- I never actually completed the passport application (I have some confusion with my address, different house names); wrong passport details would end me up in trouble.
Things look different now.
The trip involved some serious money. It even started before the trip, I literally had to start from zero. Purchase of clothes, travel accessories, suit case. And I pulled it off quite well, bought the things I always wanted, like the Samsonite Cosmolite Suitcase and 50mm Canon lens. I paid for the trip right out of my pocket and that makes me feel real good about it. It was the first time I work on a fixed target (both in terms of money and time) on this scale.
Foreign travel is expensive, but not as expensive as I thought. Most Asian countries are pretty much the same as Indian cities in terms of living expenses or so am I told.
Air Travel is no big deal. Just make sure that you are not carrying anything illegal (and that includes flowers, seeds, fruits etc, which I didn’t know at that time so I took a flower from here all the way to Jakarta 😛 ) and there is nothing to worry about. Keep your eyes open, talk to strangers, don’t trust them though. Keep your money safe.
There was an incident. When I was back in Mumbai after the journey, customs officers asked me too many questions about my baggage. My dad later told me that it could be because of the expensive looking suitcase, and I was dressed in a Kurta and I might have looked suspicious.
The passport application had to be done. And I did it. When I landed in Jakarta, the airport security guy was looking at the picture in my passport and my face multiple times, and it gave me a scare. But that was it.
All these fears are now gone. The trip was a great success on a personal level, I tell myself out of pride, “Dude, you went to Indonesia by yourself, you are awesome!”. And I can do it again. It’s one of the things that blogging taught me, If you can do it once, you can do it again and again.
Enjoy your weekend!
p.s: It was the first time I throw money on myself and I believe it has improved my quality of life, made me more demanding, which is good in a way. The experience was great, it has given me a different perspective of life.
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